


I Love You More Than Neverland

by Daisy_Rivers



Series: These Fall-in-Loves [5]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda (Broadway Cast) RPF
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Family Issues, Love, Sex, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 10:18:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12529100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daisy_Rivers/pseuds/Daisy_Rivers
Summary: You're not at all happy about the idea of spending Thanksgiving with your family, but Rafael was the one who accepted the invitation.





	I Love You More Than Neverland

**Author's Note:**

> This is the last story in this series of five. I hope you enjoy it.

Your parents are insisting that you come home for Thanksgiving. You’d managed to avoid it last year, since you were so busy with the big project that had gotten you your promotion and new title at work, but now you are fresh out of excuses. You haven’t been home in nearly two years. You don’t _want_ to go home. You want to stay here in New York where you’re happy and eat Thanksgiving dinner with Anthony’s extended family as you did last year, with you and Rafa and Daveed and Daveed’s mom, who flew in from California, crammed around the table next to random cousins and aunts and uncles, all of them talking at once, half in English and half in Spanish, Jasmine leaning across Rafa’s plate to grab another roll and him biting her arm, and everybody howling with laughter. You’d never had so much fun at a holiday dinner before.

Now they want you to come home. Home means the white colonial house in Wayne, Pennsylvania. Thanksgiving dinner will include your parents, your perfect sister Lucy and her perfect husband Brice, and you. Oh, and Rafa.

“Please bring your boyfriend, dear,” your mother says on the phone. “Ralph, isn’t it?”

“Rafael, mom,” you correct her for at least the fifth time.

“Mm,” your mother responds.

You haven’t mentioned the holiday to Rafa. You can’t imagine him and your parents in the same room. Your father’s idea of appropriate dinner conversation will be a twenty-minute lecture on the history of Wayne, Pennsylvania, followed by questions about Rafa’s financial prospects. Lucy and Brice will talk about their new house, which is also in Wayne, of course. Lucy is a dentist, and Brice is a stockbroker. Your mother will say very little, but will look repeatedly at the food on your plate because you’ve either taken too much or too little. You never know which it is, but you always know you’ve got it wrong.

You’re late getting home one night because somebody important is doing something at the Javits Center, and traffic is backed up in all directions. When you walk in the door, Rafa’s sitting on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table, headphones on, jamming to whatever beat he’s listening to. He looks so cute that you stand in the doorway for a minute just to look at him. You still find it hard to believe that this gorgeous guy is your boyfriend. He catches sight of you out of the corner of his eye and turns, giving you a big grin as he takes his headphones off.

“I ordered Chinese,” he says. “Hope you’re okay with that.”

“Sounds great. Did you get me a spring roll?”

“Well, of course.” He grabs your hand and pulls you down next to him. “A spring roll and chicken with pineapple.”

“You’re the best,” you tell him, leaning in for a kiss.

“Yes, I am,” he agrees, and pulls you in closer, turning your quick peck on the lips into something much more involved. You sigh into the kiss as he twists his fingers in your hair and cradles your head. There is really nothing better in the world than coming home to this man.

The doorbell interrupts you, and Rafa goes to get your dinner delivery. You’re halfway through your chicken and pineapple when, his voice deliberately casual, he says, “I talked to your mom today.”

Your mouthful of chicken turns to sand, and you take a gulp of water to force it down your throat. “I’m sorry?” you manage to choke out.

He smiles. “It’s fine, really. She thought you’d be home by four, or at least that’s what she said.”

“She knows perfectly well that I’m never home by four, and she called on the off chance that you’d be here,” you snap.

“Maybe.” He looks at you, his eyes blue-green and concerned. “It’s okay, babe. I have no problem talking to her.”

“Yet,” you mutter darkly, stabbing a piece of pineapple with unnecessary violence.

“She invited me for Thanksgiving dinner,” Rafa continues, his voice still calm.

“Of course she did, _Ralph._ ”

He laughs. “Yeah, she did get my name wrong.”

“It’s deliberate,” you tell him angrily. “She knows perfectly well that your name is Rafael. She just can’t bring herself to say a Spanish name.”

“Really?”

“Really. And you definitely don’t want to go to my parents for Thanksgiving because they will be horrible to you.”

Rafa swallows the last of his shrimp lo mein and takes a sip of water. “That’s too bad, because I accepted the invitation.”

“You _what?_ Dammit, Rafa, how could you do that without talking to me about it? I want to go to Anthony’s like we did last year.”

He reaches across the small table and takes your hand. “We have to do this sooner or later,” he says.

“Do what?” You feel like crying, thinking of how awful it’s going to be.

“The family thing. You’ve met my mom and my sister already.”

You had, accompanying Rafa on a quick trip out to Oakland to do some follow-up work on _Blindspotting_. You’d had dinner at his mom’s, a very relaxed dinner where Rafa flipped burgers on the tiny outdoor grill, while you and his sister made the salad and set the table. You felt completely comfortable.

“You don’t understand,” you say now, realizing you sound childish. “My family is nothing like yours.”

“I’ve gathered that, you know,” he responds dryly, “but you can’t keep them hidden forever.”

“It will be horrible,” you predict.

He shrugs. “It’s only for a couple of days. Besides, I’m so charming, they’ll probably adore me.”

He can always make you laugh, even when you’re trying to be mad at him. “You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into,” you tell him.

*          *          *          *          *

You arrive at eight o’clock in the evening on the day before Thanksgiving, having assured your parents that you would stop for dinner on the way. Your mother has made tea and cookies anyway, so you will be expected to join your parents in the living room as soon as you’ve taken your bags upstairs.

“You’ll show Ralph where the guest room is, won’t you, Y/N?” your mother requests unsmilingly.

“It’s _Rafael,_ ” you mutter, heading up the steps. Rafa is trying hard not to laugh. He gives up trying when you throw open the door to the guest room. It looks exactly the same as it did when you left home for college more than eight years ago, the two single beds still covered with blue coverlets, the lamps on the nightstands still sporting their ruffled shades.

“All for me?” Rafa asks, his hand poised dramatically over his heart. “If I’d known there were two beds, I would have brought Diggs.”

You stifle a giggle. “Behave yourself.”

He pulls you to him, his arm tight around your waist. “You know better than to expect that, right?”

You’d had a lot of discussion before making this visit. Rafa had made it clear that while he didn’t intend to deliberately irritate your parents, he was going to be himself. “Otherwise there’s no point,” he said. “I assume they invited me so they could get to know me.”

“More likely so they could tell me you aren’t suitable,” you’d told him gloomily.

“Do I suit you?” he’d asked, his eyes flashing green from under his thick lashes.

“You suit me very well,” you’d said, and spent the next hour or so proving it.

“And where is your room?” Rafa asks now, having deposited his bag at the foot of the bed nearest the door.

“Across the hall.” You roll your eyes as you show him your childhood room decorated in lavender and white. One wall is bookshelves and, while you cleared out most of your books years ago, there are still quite a few left. Rafa crosses the room to examine the titles.

“You liked _Wind in the Willows_ , too,” he says, picking up the well-worn book and smiling.

“Mr. Toad always made me laugh.”

 _“Anne of Green Gables, Charlotte’s Web, Peter Pan, The Secret Garden,”_ Rafa continues, He turns around and looks at the bed, raising an eyebrow. “Single bed in here too? I guess we’ll just have to snuggle up close.”

You’re not quite sure what to say. You agree with him that it’s ridiculous that your parents expect you to sleep in separate rooms when they are well aware that you’ve been living together for more than a year, but you assumed you’d both go along with it.

“Are you serious?” you ask.

“Of course. I’ve always wanted to sneak across the hall into a girl’s bed in the middle of the night.”

“Really? That’s one of your fantasies?”

His mouth twitches. “Maybe not so much lately, but when I was seventeen, hell, yeah. Of course any possible way of getting into a girl’s bed was high on my fantasy list then.”

“Well, then,” you say, running your finger down his chest. “I will do what I can to help fulfill a fantasy for seventeen-year-old you. My door will be unlocked.”

Your parents are waiting downstairs in the living room with tea and cookies. Rafa smiles and says, “That looks good. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

You sit down as he goes out the front door.

“Where is he going?” your father asks sharply.

“To have a cigarette,” you respond.

“He _smokes?”_ your mother asks in a horrified voice.

“Yes, Mom.” You hope your tone indicates that you don’t want to discuss it, but apparently not.

“Well, I’m very surprised at that,” your mother continues.

You pick up your tea cup and don’t say anything.

Rafa comes back in and comments that it’s getting chilly out.

“It is November, after all,” you mother reminds him, handing him a cup of tea.

“True,” he agrees and drinks some tea.

“Have a cookie,” your mother says, clearly intending to be polite even if it kills her.

Rafa helps himself to a cookie and tells her how good it is. For the first time in your life, you’re starting to see the possibility of humor in your family.

“Have you ever been to Wayne before?” your father asks Rafa.

“No, I haven’t.”

“It’s named for Anthony Wayne,” your father continues. “You’ve probably never heard of him.”

Your father never misses an opportunity to relate the entire history of Pennsylvania to a captive audience.

“Oh, of course I have,” Rafa responds. “Who hasn’t heard stories about General ‘Mad Anthony’ Wayne, hero of the Battle of Brandywine? He was born near here, right?”

You have to look down at the floor and bite your lip to keep from laughing at your father’s face. Rafa keeps talking about General Wayne and your father can’t get a word in edgewise. You glance over at your mother, who is also looking stunned. This may be the first time there’s been someone in the house who can match your father for knowledge of history. You know already that they dismissed Rafael before they met him, assuming that a Spanish-named songwriter would be an intellectual lightweight. You turn your attention back to Rafa.

“But he was the one who insisted on the court martial,” he's saying. “It was a challenge, really – _if you’re going to say I didn’t hold my line as I should have, be prepared to prove it._ All the evidence was on his side.”

“Yes, true,” your father agrees.

“And then at Monmouth, he was truly heroic, maintaining position even after Lee retreated …” Rafael continues.

The historical discussion goes on for quite a while longer, until you find yourself hoping that Rafa isn’t going to talk about Wayne even longer than your father might.

There’s finally a pause in the conversation, and your mother hastily offers, “More tea, Ralph?”

“Thanks,” Rafa says, giving her his most charming smile. “It’s Rafael, actually.”

She comes very close to smiling back as she refills his cup.

“You may have been right,” you say to Rafa at the top of the stairs later. “You may charm them into loving you.”

“Worked on you,” he says, his arm around you.

You lean into his solid warmth. “Well, not _just_ charm,” you murmur, thinking back to the night of Anthony’s cookout.

He drops a kiss on your hair. “You’ll have to explain what you mean by that later,” he says.

You hear your parents coming up the stairs and step back. “Good night, then,” you say to Rafa. “’Night, Mom, ‘night, dad,” you call toward the stairs, and you go into your childhood bedroom and shut the door.

In New York, you usually wear a sleep shirt to bed, although quite often, it doesn’t stay on all night. You take one out of your suitcase now, put it on, and get into bed, although you don’t feel the least bit sleepy. If Rafa has a fantasy about sneaking into your room, though, you want to play along, so you turn off the light and try to relax, wondering what other fantasies your boyfriend might want to act on. That gives you a very pleasant few minutes, and you close your eyes, adding some images of your own. After a while, the house is quiet, and your imagination drifts to how Rafa’s hands and mouth feel on you, tempting you to touch yourself under the blankets. It feels good, but it’s nothing like being with Rafael. You force yourself to keep your hands still and just enjoy your thoughts, and it’s then that you hear your bedroom door open slowly and quietly. You stay silent, trying to pretend to be asleep, and the door closes. You don’t even hear a footstep – he must be barefoot, of course, but then suddenly, there’s a thud and a muffled yelp. “Fuck! Ow!”

You sit up and click the bedside light on. Rafa is hopping on one foot, cursing under his breath, and trying not to laugh, all at once.

“Are you okay?” you ask.

“Yeah,” he nods, still hopping. “Fuck! Shit! Goddam mother-fucking …”

You choke back a giggle, and then ask, very formally, “Boy, why are you swearing?”

Rafa loses it, laughing hysterically and throwing himself across the bed, trying to stifle his laughter in the pillow. He wraps both arms around you, and, as soon as he can catch his breath, he gasps, “Oh, God, I love you so much,” and then dissolves into hilarity again.

By now, you’re laughing as hard as he is, and it takes a while before either of you is able to get out more than a couple of words. Finally, wiping your eyes with a tissue, you ask, “Did you stub your toe?”

He’s lying on his back, looking straight up at the ceiling, breathing hard, with the most adorable grin on his face. He rolls onto his side and props himself up on his elbow. “How did you guess?” he asks.

That makes you laugh again. “Well, you know, the thud, the hopping, the cursing …”

“Clues, huh?”

“Yeah. Is it okay now?”

He squints down at his foot. “I can’t really see it without my glasses, but probably. I mean, it’s just a stubbed toe.”

“You should have brought your glasses,” you say helpfully.

He leans over you. “Listen, Y/N, my adolescent fantasy is in complete shreds by now, so don’t make it worse. And I’m freezing, by the way.”

He’s wearing nothing but boxers. You throw the covers back so he can get under them with you, and he puts his ice-cold feet against yours. You try to pull away, but he holds you tight. “Come on, keep me warm,” he whines, and you snuggle closer to him. In truth, there’s nowhere you’d rather be.

“Next time, wear shoes,” you suggest.

“And my glasses and a sweater?” he asks. “None of those were part of my fantasy. I was supposed to sneak in here, stealthy and silent, and slide into your bed and wake you up with a kiss. Then you’d be so happy to see me that you’d take your clothes off and I’d fuck you five different ways.”

“Five?”

“At least five. My seventeen-year-old brain was a little fuzzy on what they might be, but that was definitely the plan.”

You turn so you can get your arms around him. “There’s no reason why we have to discard the entire fantasy.”

“Oh, I agree.” He kisses you long and slowly, his mouth soft. “I’m not seventeen anymore,” he says then, his voice completely serious.

“No.”

“I have different fantasies now.”

“Oh?”

The bedside lamp is behind him, and his face is shadowed. “I don’t want to break into your bedroom. I want to be there with you because it’s our bedroom.”

“Well, so far, we’re doing okay with that, at least at home.”

“Yeah, as far as it goes.” He brushes your hair off your face with his hand.

“As far as it goes?”

“I don’t want to be Peter Pan anymore.”

You know exactly what he means, and your eyes fill.

“You crazy boy,” you tell him. “Why now? Why here, of all places?”

He kisses you again. “Maybe because you were a child here, but it’s the grown-up you I love. Maybe because I want your parents to take me seriously.”

“After your Anthony Wayne lecture, I think Dad wants you to be his best friend.”

“I like your dad. I think I’ll like your mom, too, after she stops being scared of me.”

“Scared?”

“Sure. She just wants to protect you from me because she knows I’m trouble – weird foreign name, unreliable job, dangerous habits. She wants to keep you safe.”

It’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard, and you realize instantly that it’s completely true.

“How did I never see that?” you ask.

“Because you can’t see it until you’re an adult, and sometimes by then it’s too late.”

You nuzzle into his shoulder and kiss his throat. “I love you, Rafael Santiago Casal, you and your foreign name and your unreliable job and even your dangerous habits, because they’re all part of you.”

“Will you marry me?” he asks as calmly as if he were asking the time of day, and it’s perfect, free of drama and elaboration, just the two of you in each other’s arms.

“Yes.”

He sighs as if he’s been holding his breath, but he can’t really have doubted your answer. Your heart is beating faster and you feel as giddy as you did the first night you went home with him, barely knowing him, taking what might have been a dangerous chance. He helps you pull your sleep shirt over your head and tosses it on the floor. His boxers are gone; you have no idea when he took them off, but Rafa can get rid of clothes in record time. He’s kissing you softly, his mouth warm, his tongue sliding between your lips. You open to him, not just your mouth but all of you, arching up to push your breasts into his hand, then spreading your legs for him.

His left hand slides down your hip and then across, tickles your navel, and then you feel one finger trail all the way down between your legs, then so slowly inside you and you push down because it feels so good. He’s still kissing you, and you feel him smile.

“That’s good, yeah?” he murmurs.

You’re sliding up and down on his finger, but it’s not enough. “More.”

Another finger slips in, and he circles them, feeling how slick and wet you are. He pushes them all the way in, and then presses up, presses hard, and your hips jerk as he hits the nerve center there. “Do it again,” you implore. You get your own hand close to his, get it wet, and then slide it up his cock.

“Ah, shit,” he mutters, and presses his fingers up into you again, as you keep stroking his cock. You circle the head with your thumb, and Rafa rolls onto you. You look up into his eyes, deep blue now, the pupils huge, under the fringe of his lashes. You pull your knees back and lift your hips, and he pushes his fingers in you one more time, pulls them out and onto your clit while he slides in.

You‘re breathing fast, and you want all of him inside you, but he takes his time, playing with your clit as he goes deeper until his body meets yours. He starts to thrust back and forth, and you can feel the tension building inside you. He’s flicking your clit with two fingers, and you’re tensing tighter and tighter around him. He pushes harder and deeper, filling you and stretching you. He moves faster and you balance on the edge for another few seconds before you fly over, everything spinning, and your hips jerking in spasms that shudder against his cock. He slams in one more time, gasping, “Fuck!” and you wrap your legs around his waist, holding him tight.

You realize, as your breathing returns to normal, that neither of you has been quiet. You have no idea if your parents are sound sleepers or not. That thought is followed instantly by the awareness that you don’t really care. Your parents are going to have to get used to the grown-up you, to Rafa, and to you and Rafa as a couple.

Rafa sits up. “I left my cigarettes in the other room,” he says. He wraps himself in a blanket and crosses the room, watching his feet carefully. He makes a big show of opening the door and looking both ways down the dark hall before he leaves. He’s back in under a minute, cigarettes and lighter in hand. He pulls your desk chair over to the window and opens it a few inches. Cold November air blows in.

“We need more blankets,” you say.

“We’ll be okay in a minute.”

“You sure you’ll be comfortable?”

He exhales a swirl of smoke that floats out the window into the night and turns to smile at you. “I’m sleeping with my fiancée tonight.”

Early in the morning, Rafa gets up to use the bathroom and your mother is just leaving her bedroom at the same time. She stares at him.

“Good morning,” he says. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Thank you,” she says stiffly. “The same to you.”

“She answered me,” Rafael says, telling you about it. “Maybe not enthusiastically, but she didn’t tell me to get out of the house.”

“Okay,” you respond. “I guess that’s good.”

It’s cold again today, and you’ve put on a sweater. Rafa is wearing an Oaklandish sweatshirt and jeans. Your father and Brice will have on white shirts and ties for dinner, but you’re not about to tell Rafa how to dress. You think he looks absolutely gorgeous. His eyes are gray at the moment, gray with a touch of green, and he looks – happy, you think, happy and relaxed. The two of you walk down the stairs hand-in-hand.

Your parents are in the kitchen, your father at the table with a plate and a cup of coffee, your mother at the stove. Your father looks up. “Good morning,” he says pleasantly. He looks directly at Rafa. “Did you sleep well?”

“Very well,” Rafa tells him. He squeezes your hand tight. “We have something to tell you.”

Your mother turns around, her face apprehensive. She does look scared, you realize, now that Rafa has pointed it out to you. You smile at her, and you can tell she doesn’t know what to make of it. Rafa gives her his best smile to go with yours, and a tiny bit of the fear leaves her face.

“Last night,” Rafa says, “I asked your daughter to marry me, and she said yes. We wanted to tell you right away.”

There is a silent moment, and then your father says, “Well, congratulations, then.” He shakes Rafa’s hand, and gives you an awkward hug. Your mother crosses the room and tries to do the same, but Rafa hugs her anyway, and she almost smiles. She steps back and gestures toward the stove. “I’m making pancakes,” she says. “Do you like pancakes, Rafael?”

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from Rafa's song "Wendy," one of my favorites. There are a few other allusions to it in the story. The line "Boy, why are you swearing?" is a play on the first line Wendy speaks to Peter Pan in J.M. Barrie's book. Rafa knows the book well, so he gets the joke.  
> The list of children's books on the book shelf in your childhood room have my highest recommendation, except for, of all things, Peter Pan. Rafael and I apparently do not have the same taste in children's books.  
> Everything about General Anthony Wayne is true, but irrelevant to this story. If you're reading my longer stories "I Like You a Lot" or "Provoke Outrage," though, you'll meet him.  
> Thank you for reading this. I'd love to know what you think, so if you want to, leave a comment here, or come talk to me on Tumblr @daisy-rivers.


End file.
